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You love Uber and Lyft. You've said goodbye to three-hour waits and disgruntled cabbies, and now you just request a ride via the apps and have a friendly citizen-driver arrive in mere minutes.
But as a ride share partner–a driver–I can tell you that Uber-ing and Lyft-ing has its downsides and one of them is dealing with you jerks. Here are a just a few of the reasons your driver probably hates you before even picking you up.
1. You might make us drive to the burbs. Anywhere we have to go that we're unlikely to get another fare wastes precious time and gas. Sorry you live somewhere shitty, such as Beaverton or deep Southwest–where the roads were definitely laid out by drunk cows–but we don't want to bring you there. Once we're there, we're likely lost, and stuck driving solo back to the city to pick up the next clown.
2. When you sit in the front. We get it, it's sort of like you're getting into your friend's car, and there's a reason we call shotgun. And while it's certainly up to you where you sit, chances are if you sit up front you'll make the driver feel more anxious and obligated to make small talk, and less able to follow the blue line. Unless there's four of you, stick to the back and please speak up if you have something to say.
3. You don't tip. No it's not mandatory. Hell, on Uber it's not even built in, but you tip your cabbie don't you? Well, we're charging you way less for a ride. So chalk up a couple bucks you cheap ass, especially if you just made us drive your ass to your mansion in the Southwest hills.
4. When you call us from a Trimet street. Seriously. Don't stand on Southwest 5th or 6th (or any other Trimet street) and request a ride. I'm willing to get creative to pick your ass up in traffic but I am NOT willing to make a bus driver commit Portland cardinal sin number one and honk at me!
5. That you don't use Lyft. 9 out of 10 people still use Uber–it's why you see so many cars with both emblems on them. But unless you're going really far the fares are about the same and Lyft gives a much higher percentage to the driver, plus allows you to tip on the app. A win-win situation, really.
6. That you might puke in our car. Want to be the ultimate Uber cliché? Get really drunk and then toss your cookies in our backseat. Congrats, you just ruined our night, and should look forward to a $200 cleaning charge on your bill.
7. When you don't reset your pin and send us to the wrong place. If we end up at the wrong address its your fault, not the app's. (Sometimes I'll blame technology to make you feel better but…) Double check your pick up locations–a lot of times it reverts to the last place you were and you will waste both of our time sending us to your house when you're already drunk at the bar.
8. That you still don't know how to get picked up at the airport. It's not rocket science. Request a ride and proceed to the very first bay on the transport lane – one over from where your mom usually picks you up. We'll be waiting patiently.
9. The fact you've been thinking about driving. Oh cool, we're really excited for you and definitely want to share all the secrets we've learned from our own driving with you right now! Not. Spend an hour or so in the TNC hold lot at PDX and you'll see there are already plenty of drivers in Portland.
10. Your backseat driving. While we're sure your grasp of geography is superior to ours, especially if we're in your 'hood, we don't actually need you to walk us through every turn of the trip. That's what GPS is for.
11. When you ask us to change the music to top 40 hits. There is a way on Uber to set it so the passenger chooses the music. I've chosen not to do this. If I wanted to listen to Bieber, I would be in junior high, not driving you to the club.
Willamette Week